I had silently vowed never to write a poem about simple per-
sonal distress but here it is. The shallow displays of angst in
today’s popular music distress me. Plot devices that claim to
be clever, but are merely cute, in the current cinema place a

great strain on my attempts at intellectual generosity. The im-
mediate fading from the memory of most contemporary novels
is a phenomenon that disappoints me in unspeakable ways. But
it occurs to me that I am still refusing to break my vow. That

Switzerland will forever retain its stance of neutrality while
boasting a high percentage of the world’s obscenely rich. That
desolation, alienation, and disaffection are the words I find becalm-
ing above all others. I’m speaking of the weariness I sometimes feel

looking at my fellow humans beings. I’m standing here, helpless-
ly trying not to listen to them, smothering my affection like a highway.

I just got lucky. The eighties were filled with landscapes painted
with rough brush strokes that left me with all my faculties intact.
The wind was at my back and the clouds drifted away from me
like the sound of people driving fancy cars. In the sixties I could
run, I could dance, I could surrey, I could picnic like Laura Nyro.
The generations that follow me find it difficult to understand
how much work I had to do to reach this fragile state of mind
or all the stairs I had to climb in the middle of this tiny room.
The nineties were not a blur, after all, and you were there with
a bag of blue and white stones that hit all the right notes and
destroyed everyone in the world we ever hated just like that
it was so fucking cool. I’m fortunate to have known you and
my life has been enriched by your brief presence and beautiful
spleen and never again will anyone fuck up as much shit as us.